Funny English Errors and Insights
Laugh..．And Learn!
Welcome tothe website for Funny English Errors and Insights (2010), a new book of unconscious humour published by the National Library of Australia．
Funny English Er
rors and Insights will be launched at the National Library in Canberra on 29th, October 2010.
In the meantime, explore this website for other collections of real-life English language mistakes,including funny answers to exam questions, media misprints, and silly signs.
See Funny English Errors: The B List for more than a hundred examples of funny English gaffes（失言）．For more funny English errors, read author Troy Simpson's blog．For still more examples, join this website to download a free PDF version of English As She Is Taught, which lists our top 250 funny English language mistakes from that classic howlers book.
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Features
Follows in the tradition of the runaway best-seller Howlers books of the 1920s and 1930s
Includes quotes(引文) that have never been published before in this way
Includes more than 30 carefully selected funny photos
Topics include English, science, history, geography, religion, mathematics, and more
A perfect gift for students, teachers, parents, grandparents, public speakers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, clergy and religious, and anyone with a sense of humour! The word launched in the second paragraph is closest to the meaning:
| A．sent up for the first time． | B．written for the first time． |
| C．for sale for the first time． | D．printed for the first time． |
On the website, you can do the following things except ．
| A．read some funny news |
| B．know something about this book previously |
| C．find a lot of examples about English errors |
| D．express your opinions freely |
About this book, you know that ．
| A．it only includes English, science, history |
| B．it is quite different from Howlers books |
| C．all the quotes in it are familiar with us |
| D．it is intended for people all walks of life |
The text is aimed at introducing
| A．a popular website | B．some selected funny photos |
| C．a new book | D．some funny English errors |
Do you dream of owning your own house? Canadian Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old from Vancouver who is a resident in Montreal, has just achieved it. MacDonald, who has spent much of his time since graduating from college backpacking round Europe and Asia and whose main income appears to come from working as a pizza-delivery man, decided last year that he wanted to settle down. However, when he checked the real estate market, he quickly realized that he had no chance of raising the depositon a home of his own.
So he came up with an inventive solution. Using the power of the Internet, he decided to try to barter(易货贸易) his way to a house. His starting offer One red paper clip (回形针). Of course, he didn’t expect someone to offer him a house for the paper clip, he simply wanted to trade it for something that was more valuable. 14 trades later, he is now the owner of a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.
His first trade took place when two women from his hometown offered him a pen in the shape of a fish. MacDonald then traded the fish-pen for a doorknob, then the doorknob for a stove. Further transactions brought him an electricity generator and a ski-bob, a small vehicle on tracks that people use to ride across snow and ice. After nine trades, he had a recording contract at a music studio in Toronto.
But Kyle pressed on, still convinced that he would eventually get a house. After trades which brought him the opportunity to spend a day with rock star Alice Cooper and to have a small part in a Hollywood movie, he struck gold.
When words of Kyle’s astonishing barter journey reached the people of Kipling, they decided to make their move. The population of the town is a little more than l,000, and falling fast. By offering the keys to an empty house on Main Street, Kipling hoped to bring much needed publicity—and residents—to the fading town. And they seem to have succeeded!When Kyle MacDonald started his Internet bartering, he .
| A．hoped that someone would give him a house for his paper clip |
| B．didn’t expect anyone to give him a house for a paper clip |
| C．didn’t know if anyone would exchange a house for a paper clip |
| D．expected that he would have a house after 14 trades |
The third thing that Kyle MacDonald received was .
| A．something you can write with |
| B．something you hold when you open a door |
| C．something you can cook food on |
| D．a small vehicle for riding across snow and ice |
The people of Kipling, Saskatchewan wanted to .
| A．give all the houses on Main Street away |
| B．leave town and live somewhere else |
| C．attract more people to come and live there |
| D．offer the keys to houses in the city |
What does the underlined word “transaction” refer to?
| A．deal | B．knowledge |
| C．vehicle | D．decision |
Three Yale University professors agreed in a discussion that the automobile was what one of them called “Public Health Enemy No. 1 in this century”. Besides polluting the air and overcrowding the cities, cars are involved in more than half the disastrous accidents, and they contribute to heart disease “because we won’t walk anywhere any more,” said Richard Weeinaman, professor of medicine and public health.
Speaking of many of those man-made dangers of the automobile, Arthur W. Galson, professor of biology, said it was possible to make a kerosene-burning turbine car that would “lessensmog by a very large factor”. But he expressed doubt whether Americans were willing to give up moving about the countryside at 90 miles per hour in a large vehicle. “America seems wedded to the motor car—every family has to have at least two, and one has to be a convertible (敞篷汽车) with 300 horsepower,” professor Galson continued. “Is this the way of life that we choose because we treasure these values?”
For professor Sears, part of the blame lies with “a society that regards profit as a supreme value, under the illusion that anything that’s technically possible is, therefore, morally justified”. Professor Sears also called the country’s dependence on its modern automobiles “terrible economics” because of the large horsepower used simply “moving one individual to work”. But he admitted that Americans have painted themselves into a corner by allowing the national economy to become so dependent on the automobile industry.
“The solution,” Dr Weeinerman said, “is not finding a less dangerous fuel but a different system of inner city transportation. Because of the increasing use of cars, public transportation has been allowed to wither (衰弱) and grow worse, so that if you can’t walk to where you want to go, you have to have a car in most cities,” he declared. This, in turn, Dr Weeinerman contended, is responsible for the “arteriosclerosis (动脉硬化)” of public roads, for the pollution of the inner city and for the middle-class movement to the suburbs.The main idea of the passage is that .
| A．Americans are used to travelling by cars |
| B．American public transportation is growing worse |
| C．American car industry caused disastrous road accidents |
| D．American people’s health is threatened by automobiles |
It can be inferred from the passage that .
| A．Americans prefer cars to anything else |
| B．Americans are interested in fast automobiles |
| C．kerosene-burning engines cause more problems |
| D．kerosene-burning engines are green transportation |
In Paragraph 3, Professor Sears implies that .
| A．technology is always good for people |
| B．technology is a sword with two sides |
| C．more attention should be paid to social effects |
| D．US doesn’t care about the environment at all |
According to Dr Weeinerman, the best solution is .
| A．to look for a fuel alternative |
| B．to improve public transportation |
| C．to walk to where people want to go |
| D．to control the production of the automobile |
Listening to your favorite music can make a person feel great and can make their emotions change. The song you are listening to can affect how you feel. Different types of music may make you cry, laugh, or even feel anger. According to researches, music is a complex sound that causes a large variety of emotional responses in listeners.
The nature of emotions created by music has been a matter of much debate. Researches have shown that basic emotions, such as happiness, anger, fear, and sadness, can be recognized in and created by musical stimuli (刺激) in humans.
I know from experience that when I am in a bad mood, I’ll listen to my favorite CD. I don’t know what it is about the music but it just makes me feel better almost instantly. All of you have CDs or songs that make you feel great when you’re feeling down. Music has that power and none of us realize that until we really think about it. The physical effects that music has on us are almost the same as the emotional ones.
Music can change you in many ways, depending on the kind of music you are being exposed to. According to “Music and Emotions”, electronic music with loud sounds will physically affect you more easily than any other type of music. Certain types of music can give you courage and strengthen your willpower, while other types can make you relaxed. I can think of a good example for music bringing willpower and strength to you, when you are getting ready before a sport. The sport I play is football and I know that if I don’t listen to a certain mix of songs, my head is all over the place. If I listen to some certain songs I become very energized and feel better about things.
Music affects your emotions in many ways. It also affects your physical status. Music also is the key to your enjoying of a movie. Music affects your emotions by being able to change your state of mind from a sad mood to a happy one. It can also make a person feel great before a competition. Music is also the key to Movies. Without music in movies there would be no suspense, no horror and no excitement. It makes movies what they are to us.The main idea of Paragraph l is .
| A．the effects of different types of music |
| B．music can affect our emotions |
| C．how music affects our emotions is complex |
| D．why people laugh, cry or become angry when listening to music |
The underlined sentence in the 2nd paragraph probably means “ ”.
| A．people have different opinions in what is the best kind of music |
| B．people can’t agree with each other in what is the nature of music |
| C．people have been arguing about the effects of music on our emotions |
| D．people have been discussing about what causes our emotions |
The main purpose of the last paragraph is to illustrate .
| A．music will also be accepted by movies |
| B．music can change us in many ways |
| C．music can be popular with music lovers forever |
| D．music will give the common people excitement |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Music may cheer you up, but it can’t let you down. |
| B．Music used to comfort sport players in games. |
| C．Electronic music can affect our emotions much less. |
| D．Different music will cause different emotions in us. |
My mother is the only living person who has never communicated via email or text. She has never turned on a computer, registered an email account, used data storage media or searched the Internet. Since 1955, she has settled in Silicon Valley, married to an extremely technical specialist in applied physics and engineering, designing photometric systems for NASA. Only when Dad suffered from cancer could we convince her she needed a cell phone. Mom’s being separated from the information age is voluntary and deliberate.
Mom is still that farm girl, and she takes the most pride in it. She sees her neighbor and her community “real”. She shows no interest in the digital and virtual life. My mother saw Depression, World War II and the beginning of the Cold War before reaching voting age. She enjoyed country music on “The Sons of the Pioneers”, a Canadian broadcast. The battery was so precious a resource that radio was limited to the barn because Grandma thought it helped cows produce milk. In the age when Churchill moved millions for the first time with radio broadcasts, she only experienced live media monthly, if at all.
In her early twenties, Mom completed nurses’ training and worked in that field before marriage, family and church became her life’s concerns. She never really warmed up to television, though I think she appreciated a few of the series we watched, comedies like All in the Family. Computers, the Internet and mobile apps are simply not part of her experience.
Mom disagrees with the opinion that technology simplifies life. In her life, she sees online records, email and paperless systems as mysteries in which no written reference can assist her.
However, I can partly understand: I like such kind of experience and relationship one has with physical books. I am a child of television who only recently switched to online viewing. I’ve written down my awkward, love-hate relationship with my devices. Mom’s technophobia surely played a role here, but it works for her. She’s happiest as she is.The author’s mother began to use mobile phone when .
| A．she found it hard to contact with her husband |
| B．she settled in Silicon Valley for fifty years |
| C．she got marred to a technical specialist |
| D．her husband suffered from cancer |
What is the author’s mother most proud of according to the passage?
| A．Having so many close neighbors. |
| B．Experiencing too much all her life. |
| C．Living simply and in her own style. |
| D．Being involved in modern technology. |
What is the author’s attitude towards his mother’s such kind of experience?
| A．Critical. | B．Positive. |
| C．Neutral. | D．Negative. |
It is implied in the underlined sentence that .
| A．the author should make efforts to learn from his mother |
| B．the author prefers watching movies online to watching TV |
| C．Mom’s attitude towards technology has an effect on the author |
| D．Mom should also set down the relationship with physical books |
In a class this past December, after I wrote some directions on the board for students about their final examination, one young woman quickly took a picture of the board using her smart phone. When I looked in her direction, she apologized: “Sorry. Was it wrong to take a picture?”
“I can’t read my own handwriting ,”the young woman explained.“It’s best if I take a picture of your writing so I can understand the notes.”
That remark started a class-wide conversation about taking a picture instead of taking notes. For those in the photo-taking camp, motivations extended beyond their inability to comprehend their own handwriting. Some took pictures of notes because they knew their phone was a safe place to store material. They might lose paper, they reasoned, but they wouldn’t lose their phones. Some took photos because they wanted to record exactly the manner in which I had noted information on the board. Others told me that during class they liked to be able to listen to the discussion attentively.
Yet the use of cameras as note takers, though it may be convenient, does raise significant questions for the classroom. Is a picture an effective replacement for the process of note-taking?
Instructors encourage students to take notes because the act of doing so is more than merely recording necessary information—it helps prepare the way for understanding. Encouraging students to take notes may be an old-fashioned instructional method, but just because a method has a long history doesn’t mean it’s out of date. Writing things down engages a student’s brain in listening, visual, and kinesthetic（触觉的）learning—a view supported by a longstanding research. The act of writing down information enables a person to begin committing it to memory, and to process and combine it, establishing the building blocks of learning new concepts.
Taking a picture does indeed record the information, but it deletes some of the necessary mental engagement that taking notes employs. So can the two be equally effective?
I’m not sure how to measure the effectiveness of either method. For now, I allow students to take notes however they see fit—handwritten or photographed—because I figure that some notes, no matter the method of note-taking, are better than none.The woman apologized in the class because she_________.
| A．took a picture of the board |
| B．missed the teachers’ directions |
| C．had the bad handwriting |
| D．disturbed other students’ learning |
Students refuse to take notes by hand because__________.
| A．they are unable to take notes |
| B．they are more likely to lose notes |
| C．they are interested in using their phones |
| D．they have a good memory of teachers’ instructions |
According to the passage, taking notes by hand__________.
| A．requires students to think independently |
| B．is unsuitable for students to learn new ideas |
| C．helps students actively participate in learning |
| D．proves to be an old and useless learning method |
What’s the author’s opinion towards taking notes by phones?
| A．Supportive. |
| B．Neutral. |
| C．Doubtful. |
| D．Disapproving. |
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